The British government should pull its troops
out of Afghanistan, according to the former
Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Wales.
In his farewell address, Reverend Haydn Thomas
called on Tuesday for Gordon Brown to return to
his roots as son of the manse by basing his
foreign policy on Christian principles.
“Is a war which is winning us nothing but
enemies the most effective way of preventing
massacres like the one in London four years
ago?”, he asked. “The world has lost its way.
Answering terrorism with terrorism is not the
answer. Four times more British soldiers have
already died in Afghanistan than were civilians
killed on the seventh of July. We must find a
different way to address the issue: rediscover
diplomacy and reconciliation, remind ourselves
and our politicians that there is another way,
the way of Christ.”
Last Monday,
the
General Assembly also voted in favour of putting
pressure on Gordon Brown to pull British troops
out of Afghanistan.
The Moderator argued that the Christian way is
also absent from economic dealings: “We can
clearly see the side-effects of bankers’ greed:
the country in tremendous debt but the bankers
still earning huge bonuses. Our priorities are
completely messed up, and this can be seen
everywhere, from footballers’ salaries to
covering up the cross in an episode of
Coronation Street.”
“The Church’s decline is an important factor in
all this. But where there is a will there is a
way. I would like for us Christians to stop
apologising
for our weaknesses and to concentrate instead on
rediscovering how to show Christ to the world.
In our actions, in our words and even as we
vote, we can show that greed and terror and
immorality need not define our society.”
